This disclosure relates generally to mobile devices, and more specifically, to disabling a mobile device that has stolen hardware components.
Mobile devices, such as smart phones, have been the targets of a growing theft trend in recent years. For example, in 2013 a survey reported that 3.1 million United States consumers were the victims of smartphone theft, which is nearly double the number reported in 2012. Not only is data within mobile devices valuable to thieves (e.g., photographs, banking information, phone numbers, or other private information), but mobile devices may be valuable for the hardware components they contain (e.g., Random Access Memory (RAM), Bluetooth® device, memory card, CPU, Motherboard, etc.).